


kneeling in your bloodstream (panning for the only thing that ever felt like home)

by KL_Morgan



Series: Destruction and other stories [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 20:35:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13689339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KL_Morgan/pseuds/KL_Morgan
Summary: Anya in Polis, and memories of the Lexas she's known.This is a side story that takes place between Chapters 18 and 19 of "(my) Destruction Within Your Mouth." It contains SPOILERS for that story, and doesn't make any sense if you haven't read it, besides.





	kneeling in your bloodstream (panning for the only thing that ever felt like home)

**Author's Note:**

> an anon on tumblr asked:
> 
> "Are we going to find out how Lexa reacts when she finds the paint brush in her bed and realizes what it means? Or how Anya reacts when she finds shes been bamboozled? If she is holding anything breakable I imagine it might be dust now."

 

 

 

Tris awakens her, crying.

 

She doesn’t make any sound as she does it -- Anya managed to successfully train her out of that at least. When Anya first took Tris as a Second (was she nine years old? no, ten, her mother told Anya she’d been born in midsummer) she would cry at anything: an arrow that went off course, a skinned knee, a beautiful blue sky. Anya taught her how to control her breathing, keep it even and soft even as the tears drip down her chin. The other Seconds tease her for it, but Anya has assured Tris that as long as it doesn’t give away her position or hurt her focus, it does no harm.

 

“It feels good,” Tris admitted once, scrubbing the back of her wrist across her eyes. “It hurts first, but. It feels good to let it out? If I don’t, the hurt just stays.”

 

Anya opens her eyes, takes one look at Tris’s crying face, and is instantly and fully awake.

 

“What is it?” she asks, already throwing back the covers and pulling on her boots. They were the only thing she removed before letting Tris take her own shift at the spy’s door.

 

“She escaped,” Tris reports. She stands straight like a soldier. She is one. “There was a secret passageway, and she snuck out. She stole some things, too.”

 

Anya stands. “You’ll be useless and underfoot, now, you might as well sleep for the rest of the night.” As she passes the younger girl she puts her hand on Tris’s shoulder, just for a second, giving it a light squeeze. Tris ducks her head, and Anya knows her tears are of frustration. At the _unfairness_ of it.

 

That girl -- that spy -- lied so much, and for so long. And she got away.

 

Not forever, Anya thinks to herself as she strides through the hallways. This is just a delay. Someday, Anya will see her bound and kneeling.

 

There’s a growing knot of consternation in one of the upper corridors, right outside the room where Lexa keeps her precious collection of maps and dioramas. (Anya always thought it was a ridiculous enterprise. So much effort to produce and preserve, for what? To achieve the same result from the drills and memorization scouts used in maneuvering unfamiliar terrain? Not that they weren’t very pretty, she had assured Lexa whenever her former Second produced them at a strategy meeting.) Some instinct pricks up and calls for her to stop and listen to their murmurs.

 

It doesn’t take long to figure out what happened. When she sets back off for Lexa’s rooms, her teeth are grinding to the point of sharp pain shooting up into her temples.

 

Bitch.

 

Lying, spiteful _bitch_.

 

What had Lexa been thinking, picking that trash up out of the forest and taking her all the way to Polis? She’d ribbed Lexa once she saw the girl, cleaned up nice, but she knew her former Second better than that: Lexa wasn’t the type to sleep with those so much her subordinate, and even if she was, there was no need to trek halfway to Tondisi to find someone willing.

 

... there’s the wood witch legend, but warriors love their superstitions, and rumors travel. Lexa hadn’t... _encouraged_ that, had she?

 

Please, let her not have been that stupid.

 

Anya quickens her pace.

 

The handmaidens are in a huddle outside of Lexa’s rooms, whispering. They fall silent when Anya approaches.

 

She nods to their leader, Jollett. Jollett had been instrumental in allowing Anya the peace of mind in handing over her Second to the protections of the Tower. Lexa might have protested at being treated like she couldn’t handle herself, back then, but it had only been days since she’d emerged from the circle of combat covered in the dark blood of her old playmates, and the look in her eyes was still a little too distant for Anya’s liking.

 

Anya’s worst suspicions had been confirmed within hours: the middle of the night brought an attack from masked warriors. Afterward, the bodies had been stripped to reveal a mishmash of allegiances: Glowing Forest, Shadow Valley, even a few from Delphi. None from the Ice Nation, though, and that more than anything else had convinced Anya who had truly been behind the attack.

 

The would-be assassins never made it inside the Tower proper, though they did set fire to the stables. In the dark, amidst the flames and screaming horses, Anya’s greatest worry had been that Lexa herself would join the fray. That was the last this this -- mess -- needed.

 

Ironically, her dread had only grown once she realized Lexa was nowhere to be found. Once the attackers were disposed of, she raced up to Lexa’s rooms, grabbing and asking anyone she passes if they had seen the newly-minted Commander wandering the halls. No one had, and Anya can still remember the heavy weight of her own heart as she burst through the doors into Lexa’s private quarters. Any recriminations to Lexa’s bodyguards for not guarding the doors had died on her lips.

 

The handmaidens were two to each of Lexa’s limbs, pinning the struggling girl down to the bed. There were still enough of them to leave a few on guard against intruders, and their leader -- Jollett -- was practically sitting on Lexa’s chest.

 

“How _dare_ you,” Lexa was hissing, craning her neck up. It would have been funny, the imperial manner and helplessness at the same time, but Lexa had pure murder in her eyes. “You are _my_ servants --”

 

“We serve the Commander,” Jollet had said gamely from her perch, “and we _are_ serving you. This attack is meant to bring you out of the safety of the Tower, which means it is our duty to keep you here until one of your trusted generals advises otherwise.”

 

Anya had stepped in then, sensing her cue. She managed to talk Lexa down from her fury -- the handmaidens had been absolutely in the right -- although she thinks her former Second held the slightest grudge against Jollett for a long time. Until Costia had died.

 

After that, there hadn’t been enough inside Lexa to hold grudges.

 

Jollet steps forward now with a guarded look on her face.

 

“General,” she greets Anya.

 

“Handmaiden.” The doors to Lexa’s rooms are closed. Anya nods toward them. “I know she’s awake.”

 

A loud crash reverberates behind the doors, as if in response. Jollette doesn’t flinch. “The Commander is resting.”

 

Another crash, and the musical sound of something delicate shattering.

 

“Resting?”

 

Jollett’s expression might as well have been carved from wood. “She doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

 

Contrarily, it makes Anya grin at the girl. Why wouldn’t she? She’s doing her job, and well: protect Lexa. Sometimes from others, other times from herself.

 

“She’s heard about the maps?”

 

Jollett’s good; she only betrays herself by the slightly widening of her eyes.

 

Anya frowns. If the tantrum isn’t about the destruction of some of her toys, then... “Jollett, let me pass.”

 

Jollett’s chin comes up in stubbornness, but she wilts when there’s a truly _solid_ crash in the room behind her, and the sound of wood splintering apart. “If she asks, you overpowered me,” she mutters, and steps aside.

 

Anya grins, but doesn’t pause to make a reply, striding right through the double doorway and into the Commander’s quarters.  

 

(She should have known, the last time she was here. When that girl was -- when Lexa looked at her and clucked over her the way she did. Anya’s not sure what she could have done, but _something_.

 

She’d been stupid and soft. She’d looked at Lexa’s face and thought, _what can it really hurt, it’s just a stray she’s sentimental over. It will pass_.

 

Lexa knew how to keep herself in check.

 

Or she had.)

 

Her lip curls when she spots the bag of ground herb on the table near Lexa’s bed. That is _far_ too much for anyone who isn’t... she shakes her head, quickly grabs it and stuffs it into a discrete pocket.

 

Lexa is swinging her sword at -- or what used to be -- a piece of blue-painted furniture. It must have been old at the way it crunches and crumbles with each descent of Lexa’s blade. The inadequacy of her opponent fails to give Lexa any pause, and the air almost shimmers with her anger.

 

Anya rolls her eyes. She waits until Lexa next raised up her sword before darting into her space, grabbing the younger girl’s wrist and aborting the swing. Lexa whirls on her.

 

Anya stares.

 

She hasn’t seen Lexa look like this since --

 

Before the Coalition, the fighting was constant. Usually, nothing as dignified as pitched battles: barely even skirmishes. But constant. Wake up and hear of a raid further north along the border. Travel to assist, bed down for a rest, and be attacked by the second wave. Run out of food, travel into some other clan’s territory to raid a village for theirs. Sometimes there would be a lull, long enough for the cuts on the inside of Anya’s mouth to heal, and she would be shocked at the taste of food without blood.

 

She doesn’t remember it making her unhappy. It had simply... been. It had been life. And as hard and painful as life was, she _wanted_ it. Her spirit clawed at her lungs to draw the next breath, drove her tired eyes to open and her sore legs to run.  

 

She had assumed it was that way for all her fellow warriors. So when her newest Second had left her side in the middle of a real battle to plunge into the thickest part of the fray, Anya might have lost a bit of her composure.

 

“What is _wrong_ with you,” she’d spit into the girl’s face, after. After Anya had been forced to follow her, and fight off six raiders who had grabbed young children and tried to run off with them, single-handedly. Well. Her Second had also fought, but Anya was skeptical about the effectiveness of any warrior whose uplifted sword barely cleared the top of Anya’s own head.

 

To her credit, the girl didn’t back down. “They needed us.” Her righteousness was only slightly dimmed by the fact she was still clearly dizzy from one of the raiders knocking her on the head. There was a patch of black blood where he’s brought down his sword hilt, and the hair that had come loose from the girl’s braid was stuck in it. “We couldn’t _abandon_ them.”

 

Anya stared at her for a long minute, hands on her hips. “Well, at least you’re not a coward,” she muttered to herself. She could work with the rest. “Lexa, right? Don’t ever do that again. A Second follows orders.” She paused. “Next time, talk to me. And we’ll be reckless with our lives _together_. Understand me?”

 

Lexa nodded so hard her eyes had crossed a little.

 

That was the end of it, as far as Anya was concerned.

 

Except it wasn’t.

 

Lexa was her first nightblood Second. She’d never had to _report_ on a Second’s progress, not to anyone, and it was even worse to have to travel all the way to Polis to do it.

 

Titus being a moody bitch didn’t help, either.

 

“You disobeyed your First?” he demanded, almost vibrating with outrage. It should have been comical, seeing him face off against a young nightblood who didn’t come up to his shoulders. It wasn’t.

 

“They needed us,” Lexa told him. “Titus, they were screaming for help --"

 

Titus slapped her across the face.

 

Anya felt sick. You didn’t hit kids in her village. If they got into something they shouldn’t, the pain of the natural consequences -- a burn, a cut, the loss of an eye or a limb -- was the best deterrent. Children died every day, and even more would die when they were old enough to become warriors. Basic training in self-defense involved more kicks and punches and hard falls than any one-time punishment. Why pile useless pain on top of that? Sure, sometimes adults who were sick or drunk took out their unhappiness on those more vulnerable, but as soon as it was discovered, the rest of the village would correct that. There were no real secrets in a village.

 

But she couldn’t _correct_ the Flamekeeper. If she tried, they might take Lexa away and give her to another First. One who didn’t understand _you didn’t hit kids_.

 

So she stood there, useless, with a helpless frustration that made her want to vomit.

 

“You cannot,” Titus gritted out between clenched teeth, “allow your emotions to rule you. A Commander is stronger than that. Your passion will kill you if you give into it.” The barest hint of desperation crept in at the edges of his stony expression. “If you want to survive the conclave, you will listen to me.”

 

That desperation was why Anya had learned not to hate Titus. It led her to suspect -- and have that suspicion confirmed, over the next few years and observations -- that Lexa was his favorite. The Flamekeeper, of course, could not have favorites. So everything he felt for Lexa was changed to anger and fear, instead.

 

So Anya never could hate him. But she never forgave him, either.

 

“Do you understand me,” Titus said quietly, in a tone that made it clear it wasn’t a question.

 

Lexa cast one look back at Anya before closing her eyes as she turned to Titus, and nodded.

 

That had been it. That was the last time Anya had seen the look of banked fire in Lexa’s face; the sheer _heat_ that lived inside her and burned for the hope of the world no one else even dared dream about. Anya had known then it wasn’t gone, just hidden. Every animal learns to hide when hunted.

 

Anya could still _sense_ it was inside Lexa. When she survived the conclave and didn’t immediately embrace a slow death through drink and drugs or sex. (No one ever talked about those Commanders who survived their conclave only in name. But there was more than one reason why so many of them failed to reign for very long.) When she went against everyone’s warnings and advice to approach the first clan with her plans for a Coalition. All of Lexa’s life was proof of those fires still burning -- but that’s what worried Anya. To be surrounded by the smell of smoke in the forest was no less dangerous, no less vulnerable, for not being directly caught in the midst of burning trees.   

 

Costia had helped. Her passions ran just as deep, but cool: like wells of fresh water springing up from the earth. Lexa tried to follow her example -- Titus’s obvious approval of his protege only encouraged that -- and gentled herself. It was an odd thing to see, how Lexa molded herself to be the person best suited for Costia’s temperment, Costia’s passion. Like a wild horse loving a rider enough to take a bridle. But Lexa had been happy with Costia -- unreservedly, genuinely happy -- for all that.

 

And Anya had silently sighed in relief.

 

Then Costia died.

 

There was no fire after that: just stone. A cold blankness that lingered even when Lexa slowly returned to life and expression. Anya had been grateful Lexa wasn’t lost entirely -- that duty at least kept her alive and functioning, when love had failed her. It seemed a small price to pay in the end, that Lexa might lose those troublesome inner fires, and Anya would never again worry over seeing those burning looks.

 

But she sees it now.

 

“Take your hand off me,” Lexa says, low.

 

Anya is so shocked she actually does it.

 

Lexa doesn’t resume her hacking. She lets her sword arm fall to her side. The tip of her blade scraps against the floor, and she stares, as if she wasn’t conscious until this moment that she was still holding it. She tosses it behind her onto the bed.

 

“I’m not here to say I told you so,” Anya says.

 

Lexa throws her a look that says she might die if she did.

 

Anya crosses her arms, settles back on her heels. “That was an irreplaceable antique.” She’s guessing, anyway. Everyone in the Tower is obsessed with old things.

 

“It’s mine. I can do whatever I want with it.”

 

“Hmm.” Anya tilts her head to the side. “Did you hear your witch stole some of your maps? And set fire to a few more.”

 

That prompts a dangerous flare in Lexa’s eyes, but her voice is tightly controlled when she replies: “My people can make more.”

 

Anya nods, looks back at the ruin of wood in a collapsed, splintering heap on the floor. Looks back at Lexa with a raised eyebrow.

 

“She was here,” Lexa says. “She took --” She cuts herself off with a swallow, and her hands clench into white-knuckled fists. “Anya. What do I _do._ ”

 

It’s the same look: fires burning within. And something in Lexa’s expression reminds Anya of Tris: “ _If I don’t, the hurt just stays.”_

 

Anya meets her eyes. “Make her pay for it.”

 

She sees it catch, like a spark to tinder, even before Lexa nods. She’s not sure any fire is safe while it rages, but she hopes this way it will have a focus, a target. Someone to consume besides Lexa herself.

 

Besides: this is the witch’s fault. She’s the one that brought Lexa’s passions roaring back to life.

 

Let her bear the consequences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> title care of Andrea Gibson, with thanks to soclose (AO3)/wakefulstarss (tumblr)
> 
> ridiculousness is all my own


End file.
